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Heed the Call of [Arkham Horror Files]!

Based on the Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, Arkham Horror Files is the brand name for a series of products produced by Fantasy Flight Games. These games are more or less all set in 1920's New England, although world... well... Worlds-hopping occurs. While there is no overall narrative to tie all the games together, they do allow you to experience horror and pathos in a variety of ways. Also, a lot of the characters appear in all the games!

The game that started it all, currently on its 2nd edition. A fully co-op game, you explore the streets of Arkham (and with the expansions, other nearby towns) to try and discover clues to stop the Ancient One from awakening.

This game features many hallmarks of Fantasy Flight's games: A ton of fiddly bits and cardboard tokens, massive decks, a confusing as hell rulebook, and insanely good production values. It also represents a ton, TON of bloat, with NINE total expansions -- and one of those is a rerelease/remaster!

I love the game to bits, but it is hard to get to the table. I mean, the sucker has a 43 page large FAQ!

There haven't been any new expansions for Arkham Horror since Miskatonic Horror.. and Eldritch Horror is the reason. It is essentially Arkham Horror 3.0. Taking nearly a decade of game making experience into account, FFG made a game that theoretically plays easier and faster and is more amicable to having expansions. This game should also be applauded for being the first of Fantasy flight's products to introduce a separate "Learn to Play" and "Rules reference" document, which really does help - although I wish they'd call out changes specifically made in the LTP document so you knew what was being made easier for your first time.

I wouldn't know - I have actually never played this one, because of the sunk cost fallacy in my collection of Arkham Horror. However, I can recommend a really good video on it!

Eldritch Horror is up to 6 expansions already, putting out at least one a year since it was released. I believe there are mechanics in there that limit the weird bloat and interaction problems that Arkham Horror faced, but again.. haven't played it.

All the co-op fun of Arkham Horror in a dice game! A ton more portable than the standard Arkham Horror, this product has you challenging to meet specific dice rolls on an ever-dwindling set of dice. You can use spells and items to help you, and try to focus, but if you aren't careful the game will snatch victory from you very, VERY fast.

The game takes place entirely within the Miskatonic Museum, so you are exploring forgotten storage places and strange, twisting exhibits. It's fairly thematic, with a clock striking midnight to mark the impeding doom.

This game comes in Digital form too, called Elder Signs: Omens! This is actually how I learned to play the game. It's not the most intuitive, but you start seeing tricks and cool interactions in it that aren't in the full game.

Elder Sign has 3 released boxed expansions, and one more on the way. It also has a "challenge deck" that adds flavor to the game as a print on demand situation. Then there's a bunch of promo cards which I'll personally never own because who wants to go to Minnesota in October?

What I find cool about the expansions is that the two newest ones, Omens of Ice and Omens of the Deep, actually started as DLC for Elder Signs Omens! They took the digital product and turned it back into a physical product, changing the whole feel of the game. Streets of Arkham also fundamentally changes the core gameplay, but I think it was co-developed on the app and the board game at the same time. The first expansion, Unseen Forces, was published well ahead of the others and adds the always-important Blessings and Curses. I'd say that is a must-get if you buy the base game.

Oh hey everyone, we're releasing a new Mansions of Madness! Oh.. and it'll be out... Next week, for GenCon!

This was my jaw hitting the floor this last year. Mansions of Madness 1st edition (which I'll talk about below) was my favorite FFG Arkham game. The thematics of exploring a mansion and solving a mystery actually playing out in narrative form was excellent.

Then they had to add an app to it.

As FFG's second app-requiring game (the first being X-Com), the redesign of MoM took the antagonist player role and gave it to a computer. and by doing so, the entire game was made co-op.. and surprises abounded. Now, you didn't know what the mansion looked like when you first stepped in. Now, new scenarios and tweaks could be delivered digitally, at a reduced cost. Now, they could better adjust the difficulty based on players. And to be extra nice, all the 1st edition components could be used in the 2nd edition to add even more variety!

I've heard people knock this game because the app seems tacked on. You could EASILY play this game entirely within the app with a few small tweaks. But I think that misses the point. There's something damned awesome about having the miniatures on the table in front of you, and then seeing them DISAPPEAR.. and you don't know where they are or where they'll reappear. And yes, that happened to me in one of the scenarios.

The only downside is cost. Ooohhh mama. The core is $100, the 1st edition repacks are $50 each, and the first official expansion is $30. DLC is $5 per platform you buy it on. But man, is it fun, and it sets up incredibly fast!

So all of the Arkham Horror Files games try to tell a narrative. You are this team of disparate investigators, in way over your head as you try to comprehend things no mortal should. But at the end of the day, your character is defined by the board and the cards you draw.

So how about we let YOU decide the cards you draw?

Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a fully co-op Living Card Game. The base set includes components to allow 2 players to play, but the idea is that it can be expanded in the future. Once you choose an investigator, you build a deck based on their specific construction rules and enter into a campaign to solve a mystery... A mystery told through Act and Agenda decks, encounters and locations. Shut Up and Sit Down did an excellent overview of the game.

The base game isn't a ton of value. You get 1 copy of all but the neutral cards, and buying a second core leads to you having a second set of encounter cards that you really can't do anything with. But as the game goes on, that will get better. Currently, we are in the Dunwich Legacy cycle - a deluxe box, followed by six mythos packs that provide the last 6 stories of the campaign. To FFG's credit, they have designed the Mythos packs to be playable as standalone adventures... But I suspect most people will play them in campaign mode. They also are using Print on Demand to put out standalone adventures. Already 2 have been released, which can be slotted into your existing campaign for a cost.

All things must come to an end. These two games represent the only products that, out of the box, pit player versus player in the Arkham Horror Files line.

I am going to be 100% honest: I have no exposure to the CoC card game whatsoever. It always looked interesting, but.. I got nothing. If anyone wants to add some text to this, please let me know and I'll give you accredidation.

As for MoM 1st?

Cards. Cards cards cards cards cards.

MoM was FFG's second attempt at making a highly narrative driven game. Their first, the original Android, was ALSO very heavy in piece count, but MoM got even more wild. And, like Arkham Horror before it, I loved it. I just love 2nd edition more.

So you had a Keeper who ran the mansion, and the players. The idea was that the players would construct the map using their investigator guide, then the keeper would make a series of decisions about the scenario and what exactly happened. They would then "seed" the mansion by placing cards all over it. The investigators would need to collect these cards to get clues, figure out the conspiracy, solve puzzles, and hopefully get out alive. There were some REALLY cool mechanics, like the keeper having threat to summon monsters, actual physical pieces that could be set up to make puzzles to solve, and the monsters being randomized based on their bases! Then there were the combat decks, which did different things based on the weapons you had and were also randomized.

Setup could easily take 30 minutes to an hour, though. And a lot of the enjoyment would be based on how aggressive the keeper was. If the keeper went for the throat, it would be nearly impossible for the investigators to win, just by the very nature of the scenarios. Still, at least you knew who your enemy was from the beginning, unlike Betrayal at House on the Hill - which many compared Mansions of Madness to.

Then there was the debacle with the first expansion. Forbidden Alchemy basically was everything at FFG going wrong. Misprinted cards, misprinted rulebooks, impossible scenarios... Somehow there was just no quality control on it, to the point where they essentially recalled the product to release a revised edition, and then gave everyone who had already bought the product a few "upgrade pack" to fix things. It was a mess, and hurt FFG's reputation quite a bit.

I still have all my 1st edition components, but I don't expect to get them to the table. 2nd edition basically eliminated the need for all those cards, including the "print on demand" ones that had to be duplicated to avoid having tells of what cards were what. With that said, I really, REALLY hope all the 1st edition scenarios come out for 2nd edition, in some form. There are some excellent stories in there that I never got to play.

This thread is for the discussion of all Arkham Horror Files products, including ones not listed here. Please use spoilers as appropriate - the most fun part of many of these games is discovering what new horror (hue hue) lies lurking around the corner!

Today, despite my sick condition, I picked up The Miskatonic Museum for AH: LCG. I also picked up a ton of Ultra-Pro Matte sleeves, because the Mayday ones I bought were clumping and I just knew they would be crap.

The good news: Yay, the new sleeves worked, and I have plenty left over!

The bad news: Ack, with the new thicker sleeves I've almost filled up my first box, and will need to order another organizer.

The bad news pt. 2: Ugh, I trimmed my dividers so short that now they are basically useless. I was trying to trim them down to the height of the inner divider walls, but that led to them being.. well.. shorter than the sleeved cards in most cases. I guess it's time to print a THIRD set...

The Arkham Horror LCG is an excellent idea and it has actually gotten several people I know into the concept of building a deck for a card game like this, which nothing else has been able to do (even with how hard I tried with Star Wars and Conquest...)

I suspect, though, that FFG didn't quite know what it was getting into and hasn't realized how differently people are going to approach a coop LCG like this. This isn't a game where just bringing your deck over to a friend's house for a quick game makes as much sense. People want to be able to get together and play a game with one set of things, more like a typical co-op tabletop game.

I have fallen for the Arkham horror LCG in the worst way. Currently have a single core set and the currently released expansions, but I really want to pick up a second core set as deck building is fairly restrictive with just one. Also it'd be nice to try a four player game - though again that'll likely cause it to be difficult to deckbuild. At any rate I'm counting on someone else I play with getting into it enough to buy their own core set, allowing me to realistically provide enough cards to build two characters. Well, at least until enough expansions are out that it's no longer a problem.

I have fallen for the Arkham horror LCG in the worst way. Currently have a single core set and the currently released expansions, but I really want to pick up a second core set as deck building is fairly restrictive with just one. Also it'd be nice to try a four player game - though again that'll likely cause it to be difficult to deckbuild. At any rate I'm counting on someone else I play with getting into it enough to buy their own core set, allowing me to realistically provide enough cards to build two characters. Well, at least until enough expansions are out that it's no longer a problem.

So part of what I wanted to do with this thread was discuss deckbuilding. I made 1 attempt at building a deck so far, and it crashed and bombed, HARD. Granted, we weren't assisting each other like we should have (as I forgot about that rule), but even on its own it seems like I screwed up the basic deck economy somewhere along the lines.

I'm pretty pumped for Cities in Ruin. I kind of hope Devastation becomes a general game mechanic instead of something only tied to Shudde M'ell, because it seems awesome. I'm sure there will at least be a Prelude tied to the mechanic.

Also I somehow forgot that Ashcan Pete wasn't already in the game. He's one of my group's favorite characters.

So part of what I wanted to do with this thread was discuss deckbuilding. I made 1 attempt at building a deck so far, and it crashed and bombed, HARD. Granted, we weren't assisting each other like we should have (as I forgot about that rule), but even on its own it seems like I screwed up the basic deck economy somewhere along the lines.

Has anyone found any deckbuilding resources or advice?

ArkhamDB is a good little deckbuilding website. If you are avoiding card spoilers, they often have stuff up as soon as they leak from what I've seen though, so be careful.

Obviously I haven't had a chance to really get stuck into deckbuilding, but working together with a friend (or friends) is something i'm really looking forward to. And yeah assisting each other is huge, it starts to make splitting up real scary once you realize how big of a help it can be, especially in the everything is awful mythos phase. Don't be afraid to throw out cards to help make sure a crucial test another investigator is doing succeeds, especially the neutral skill cards, as not only do they help - they often give you a bonus.

I've found a solid base for any investigator deck usually looks like:

2x Emergency Cache
2x Flashlight (Though if playing a mystic, not as needed)
2x Unexpected Courage (Can be replaced with another of the focused neutral skill cards if you're feeling lucky.)
2-4x Any of the neutral skill cards as appropriate. (You can either play to your strengths or weaknesses. I usually go to strengths when playing with someone else, weaknesses when solo.)

This'll give you a decent economy, allow most characters a decent chance to investigate high shroud locations and also reward you for throwing cards into skill tests. From there most decks are about leaning heavily into your core class, with your side class/extra cards allowing you to add a bunch of unexpected tricks. Also don't forget to take into account the value of the skill traits on each card - I can't state enough that it's often just straight up better to burn cards into skill tests to ensure success, rather than spending the resources and actions to play them. Granted my favorite class has been survivor so maybe i'm a little burn happy on the cards.

Also just in general to anyone thinking about picking the game up, don't be afraid to completely fail and keep going. Don't play the same scenario over again even if you blow it - nothings more genre appropriate than everyone going a little mad or getting crippled or worse. I've also learned that sometimes you just have to eat your pride and get out the hell out of dodge the hard way. Just make sure you maintain discipline and only read the resolution you get - it'll make playing through again way more fun.

On that note, I'm looking forward to trying a "mega" campaign play-through once another full expansion cycle gets out - Start with one group of investigators and go through all the investigations until all the investigators die, or we finish and record the results.

I can't recommend the Investigators of Arkham Horror book, unfortunately. The mat is nice and the promo cards are still and the prints are OK if you like that sort of thing but the book itself is a disappointment. The art is what you'd expect, the production values are great (though I've spotted several proofreading errors) but the writing falls short of the task by some distance.

So I ended up having an overload of Arkham stuff this weekend. Played Mansions of Madness Second Edition on two different scenarios, with one scenario being a win for everyone and another *insanity effect spoilers*

Was a win for me and another player. I basically got the don't let everyone win insanity effect and was enough of a nuisance to cause everyone else to go insane, leading to a cascading failure of trust. The downside was I really wanted to actually solve the mystery. Next time hopefully.

I also ended up building and playing an Arkham Horror Card Game deck solo. Turns out Ashcan + duke make an incredible solo team, even with the handicap of one core set. Deck and explanation in the spoilers!

Description:
Ashcan's pretty stacked at the start, Duke is a good dog/best friend and you'll be leaning on Duke pretty hard to get through any solo adventures. This deck has ALL the neutral skill cards for a reason, these are a good way to buff duke on a crucial skill test, or to ready duke for a second action each turn.

Due to heavy reliance on Duke, you want another ally out as early as possible to make sure you don't ever lose duke to an unexpected card effect. Ideally you want Leo in your opening hand, as the extra action per turn is huge solo and can mean the difference between being eaten or solving the mystery. However the big man or beat cop do in a pinch.

Fire Axe is something else you want to have early. However once you get one out, you'll never want to go past 3 resources as at most you can only put in 3 resources and if you have zero, you'll do more damage. A typical fight will go - Duke attack > (Free action) Ready Duke > Duke attack > Fire Axe with 1-3 resources behind it. If these attacks hit, you'll be doing two damage every hit which is pretty huge and with three resources that last attack is almost a guarantee (on normal that is).

Rite of seeking is included to make use of Pete's decent willpower. Alongside dig deep, it can also be a useful resource sink if they start building up whilst you're not under fire.

Beyond that, most cards are dedicated to items that add passive skill bonuses (Like magnifying glass) or the ability to run away, which can be especially useful when things go south.

I've managed to get fairly good resolutions so far with this deck throughout the Dunwich legacy campaign, though it's been slightly light on the bonus xp. I'm up to the Museum mission, but want to save that for my co-op play-through with a friend before I try it solo. Also got through Curse of the Rougarou side mission, though just barely. That mission gets nasty.

Man, I need that Dunwich Horror expansion to show back up. I never got all the Cthulu stuff. It's never been a thing for me, but, I thoroughly enjoyed playing the original box. Granted, I usually got curb stomped, but, I would just grab another investigator and carry on. Finally made it through with my starting investigator, and now I want to expand.

Finally did the first core set scenario with four players last night. Took an hour and a half, as one of us was new to the game, but it was lots of fun. Some mistakes ruleswise, and the guy who put the decks together neglected to put weaknesses into my deck until about halfway through the game and forgot the two worst ghoul monsters in the encounter deck, but all in all an excellent time.

Playing with four is obviously far, far better than solo play, when the game feels more like a kind of mental exercise than a fun thing to play. We will continue the scenario in a couple of weeks and spend experience and get into all that deckbuilding goodness.

The Essex County Express is out, as the next step in the Dunwich Legacy!

.. still haven't played more than the intro. Why do I buy into shit like this?

Anyways. I love, LOVE ghost trains. I guess I didn't realize this would be ghost trained themed. I haven't looked at the locations at all, but the idea of randomly dealing out one of 3 engines is cool.

Also scary is that there are 4 weaknesses tied to the scenario, AND I noticed something in the setup that affects the chaos bag!

For Investigator cards, it is now very obvious that they'll be ramping up the card strength through the campaign. For instance, the guardians get 2 cards -- Bandolier (rank 0) and Stand Together (Rank 3). The lowest ranked card is for the Survors, at Rank 1, and the two neutral cards are both rank 3 as well.

Edit: Aww. And I definitely need a new organizer (which I was planning on anyways) because sleeved cards take up a ton of room..

I really want to play Essex but I haven't been able to get Dunwich Legacy yet (only thing I am missing). My group made new decks and we tried Carnavale last weekend. An unlucky early draw kept my character stuck at the home location most of the game which really hurt and we lost, but gave it a good fight. I think with the deluxe expansion we should have the cards for 3 decent decks.

So keen for that new box. Kind of want to make a custom Rust from True Detective character.

In other news I finally got a chance to play all the way up to Blood on the Altar. So far every pack has delivered a tense and gripping experience, and I'm *really* looking forward to seeing how things shape up towards the end.
Granted that's if my team's current investigators can survive that far, we're uh, going a little crazy.

Also Blood on the Altar gets my "I never expected to feel real fear in a card-game" award.

*Real goddamn spoilers as to why*

Holy crap they kidnapped Duke due to an auto-fail. Two people were sacrificed, thankfully Duke survived the cull - do not mess with Ashcan when he has a Fire-Axe and lots of luck on his side.

Seriously, I kind of want to just spoil and break down how Essex County throw our sorry asses into a barrel and proceeded to shoot us for sport.

Even knowing going in what that scenario expected of us, I don't think we could have beat it.

I do feel of the missions so far, it's the one where it feels like luck can totally dictate how possible it is to get through, due to how it's setup. Although that may have just been because we didn't shuffle the mythos deck enough.

I'm down for hearing your tail of madness! Just chuck it in a spoiler!

Mission Spoilers

I feel like pace is the key to victory, there' s some nasty cabins you can walk into that hurt so much if you don't have enough card symbols in hand, so rushing too much can cause you to take way too much damage. Of the failures I've had, it's usually been from face checking one of these without being ready for it. Sitting still and grabbing some cards feels worth it at times, despite the need to keep ahead of the agenda.

I have had Arkham Horror for about 4 years now and have yet to get a group to play with. It really is a complicated game and the play time is so long that I understand why my friend are skeptical. But I love the setting and the game to bits so maybe this year I can finally get one done.

I have had Arkham Horror for about 4 years now and have yet to get a group to play with. It really is a complicated game and the play time is so long that I understand why my friend are skeptical. But I love the setting and the game to bits so maybe this year I can finally get one done.

I've gotten to play twice or three times. If you have an apple device, the app should help cut down on the intimidation factor, because it can replace the location decks. Don't chuck everything into the game -- If you have just the base, play that. If you have expansions, limit them to one large and maybe 1 small at most.

Seriously, I kind of want to just spoil and break down how Essex County throw our sorry asses into a barrel and proceeded to shoot us for sport.

Even knowing going in what that scenario expected of us, I don't think we could have beat it.

I do feel of the missions so far, it's the one where it feels like luck can totally dictate how possible it is to get through, due to how it's setup. Although that may have just been because we didn't shuffle the mythos deck enough.

I'm down for hearing your tail of madness! Just chuck it in a spoiler!

Mission Spoilers

I feel like pace is the key to victory, there' s some nasty cabins you can walk into that hurt so much if you don't have enough card symbols in hand, so rushing too much can cause you to take way too much damage. Of the failures I've had, it's usually been from face checking one of these without being ready for it. Sitting still and grabbing some cards feels worth it at times, despite the need to keep ahead of the agenda.

I learned after the fact that we played the scenario wrong... Kinda. We would have still died. But knowing when the Agenda can properly advance is an important part of the game!

I have and love Eldritch Horror. I would love to play this on Tabletop Simulator or something with some PA people. My typical gaming group consists of three sets of husband/wives. All of us husbands like it, all of the wives hate it. Go figure.

Seriously, I kind of want to just spoil and break down how Essex County throw our sorry asses into a barrel and proceeded to shoot us for sport.

Even knowing going in what that scenario expected of us, I don't think we could have beat it.

I do feel of the missions so far, it's the one where it feels like luck can totally dictate how possible it is to get through, due to how it's setup. Although that may have just been because we didn't shuffle the mythos deck enough.

I'm down for hearing your tail of madness! Just chuck it in a spoiler!

Mission Spoilers

I feel like pace is the key to victory, there' s some nasty cabins you can walk into that hurt so much if you don't have enough card symbols in hand, so rushing too much can cause you to take way too much damage. Of the failures I've had, it's usually been from face checking one of these without being ready for it. Sitting still and grabbing some cards feels worth it at times, despite the need to keep ahead of the agenda.

I learned after the fact that we played the scenario wrong... Kinda. We would have still died. But knowing when the Agenda can properly advance is an important part of the game!

Yeah, I ran into that issue the first time we encountered cultists in the original missions. Turns out the timing of the mythos phase is super important and I misunderstood that the agenda can only advance at that specific step, or if a mythos card explicitly states it can advance the agenda. That and also missing that all doom is wiped from the board when the agenda advances (I thought it was just the required number). We, uh didn't make it.

( Incidentally these rules make the mystic card Dark Pact appealing, since when you know the agenda's advancing next turn you can dump a bunch of doom on it without having to worry about it. )

Oh incidentally another rule I got wrong involves the take X damage for how much you fail by sort of cards - Turns out a test result can never go below 0 - any negative result is brought back to zero - though cards that effect the results of a test still take into account the negative ( so failing a 2 willpower test with a result of -4 couldn't be fixed by playing lucky, but the result at the end will be 0.)

So we decided to mulligan and re-do the Essex County Express with the right rules.

... and we beat it! Holy shit, that was white knuckle intense. Two of us were down to having 1 health or sanity left. We had to grab a passenger or one of us would have died (and got very lucky to draw passengers at the end). And in the end, I won two skill tests by succeeding despite pulling the -4 token.. BOTH TIMES!

Finally, it's not just the insight you'll gain into these investigators that will help you bring them more fully to life within your favorite Arkham Horror Files games. Each Arkham Horror novella comes with five cards for Arkham Horror: The Card Game that are exclusive to the novella—one rules card, one alternate art investigator, the investigator's alternate art mini-card, and two never-before-published signature cards for the investigator, both of which feature the "Replacement" keyword that allows you to use them in place of the investigator's normal signature cards.

It isn't expensive, and it still fits the LCG model, but it still kinda bums me out.

But hey.. We died horribly in the second to last scenario, so a chance to go at it again with some alternate players could be cool?

I tried to play it, relabeled the Kaos bag the Big Bag of Fuck You and never played it again.

Ouch, that sounds painful. What difficulty were you running on?

The lowest difficulty. It was still highly irritating.

That's.. odd. Like, even if you don't boost your stats with discarding cards, you should still not lose the first few encounters... Especially if you are playing multiplayer and other people can assist.